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8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#431
post #201
post #4

I've generally been on the free speech side of this debate, as some of my previous comments on HN will show. With 8chan, I legitimately don't know what my opinion is. I've read it before, and I spent a few hours reading it this weekend, and it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists. I'm not referring to the simple use of racial or ethnic slurs -- of course this…

> I've read it before, and I spent a few hours reading it this weekend, and it's beyond clear to me that it absolutely had the potential to radicalize shooters and terrorists. What was it you read there that convinced you that websites are capable of turning people into murderers any more than video games are?

Do you not think that discussion has the potential to convey ideas and change minds? It hardly seems implausible to say that a group of people eagerly urging each other to murder could possibly result in someone getting murdered.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#432
post #196

This might be an unpopular opinion for those who view more rules as the answer. Banning (or discontinuing or deplatforming or whatever you want to call it) may do little but harden the resolve of key ideologues of whatever stripe. For them, it leads credence to the idea that there is conspiracy against the group afoot. Besides, when has banning actually been effective? Sure, it may reduce manifestation and reduce rec…

The ideologues are already very well hardened. White supremacy isn’t a new ideology.

Furthermore, leaving it out in the open allows it to spread. There's good evidence that "de-platforming" is highly effective at preventing the spread of hate.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#433

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

> universally

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

If it did, censorship wouldn't be relevant. The content you don't like isn't a naturally or accidentally occurring substance. Someone wanted it to exist.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#434
There's this notion of 'bad money chases out the good'; stems from the time when coinage was made from expensive rare metals. Because weighing your currency is annoying, the state decrees that any stamped coin is to be treated as if it is worth precisely what it says its worth, even if it is a little light.

In such scenarios, everyone saves up their fat coins and spends their most shaved off misshapen light coins. Eventually ALL the money in circulation is the 'bad' money.

The same seems to happen with social networks: _IF_ you allow questionable stuff on your site, soon all the other users will go elsewhere, and your social network eventually caters ONLY to the questionable stuff. The counterweight to that would be lots of users who put inherent value in the notion that the social network they are a part of 'does not believe in censorship', but I think we all know a vanishingly small amount of non-incel/dailystormer/etc users care enough about it to hang out on the incel/dailystormer/etc social network, where every stranger you meet, is likely tweaked in the head.

Give it some time and I bet soon the same thing again will happen to CDNs: If most CDNs band together to censorship such content, on one hand there'll always be a CDN that sees a mission (and perhaps, a business case) in being anti-censorship. But, soon, the ONLY thing that CDN will be hosting is questionable content. And at that point, I bet plenty of sites, filters, firewalls, internet providers, etc, will just blanket-ban the entire CDN and be rid of it all.

And then sites like 8chan possibly truly cannot survive.

Or not. Maybe they'll find a way.

But if that happens, the 'council of CDNs' will have quite a bit of power to wield. So far the messaging coming from at least cloudflare is that they understand this and take this seriously (and so far do not appear to want to open the can of worms if they can avoid it), but it feels inevitable.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#435
We're constantly denying our responsibility to manage our emotions and giving it away to others, so that they can protect us from ever seeing anything that might upset us.

Some people seem to think that there are authorities we can trust to enforce the lines we draw in the sand on what is acceptable speech and what isn't.

There is no such authority. People abuse authority because they can and guess what. When you'll try to say "Hey, you can't do that!" they'll just ban you too.

It is hard and unpleasant and disturbing to deal with reality. It's still real though.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#436

We wouldn't tolerate the existence of an Islamist site that glorified and helped perpetrate mass incidents of terror against our society. What 8chan is doing is exactly the same, minus the Islamist part, yet there's hypocrisy in how they're treated vs e.g. the social media wing of ISIS. These people are trying to kill as many of us as possible. In no way should society accept it. It's simple societal self-defense. Ro…

And yet, we let Islam continue to be preached in this nation. When will we recognize that extremist ideologies like these can not be allowed to fester? Freedom of speech needs its limits.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#437
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment is completely irrelevant to this situation. No relation whatsoever. CloudFlare is a private company.

CloudFlare operates in California. California has an affirmative right to free speech, broader than the First Amendment's negative command to Congress. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R... (IANAL)

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#438
post #347

My opinion is that freedom of speech is a fine ideal to strive for, but it relies on having a stable society with some minimum level of education (moral and philosophical too, not just the technical kind). It requires people who are able to fully parse the implications of what they are hearing to make sound and rational judgements on the rejection of an idea or the embrace of it. It creates a moral duty for the peopl…

This isn't censorship though. It's private companies refusing to host something. Nobody has been arrested for speech and there are no laws prohibiting speech that isn't overtly and specifically threatening or otherwise violates the "fire in a crowded theater" test.

Censorship is censorship whether it's done by a national government or not. You are conflating the First Amendment with (anti) censorship.

Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I'm in agreement with Popper's view that societies should tolerate everything except intolerance. It draws a fine line between what's acceptable speech and what is not. And going by it, things like 8chan should get shut down. The line of thought you put forward, by contrast, rubs me in a very wrong way. It was used to justify, depending on the period and country, not allowing people to vote on the basis th…

You make some great points. Let me also ask you a devil's advocate question. "Let's go to oarabbus_'s house at and kill him" is not protected speech, correct? I am sure everyone agrees upon this. But "Let's attack folks who are as they are a scourge upon our nation" is protected? Why?

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Re: 8chan goes dark after hardware provider discontinues service

#440
post #348

I've been waiting for answers to these question: What do we think happens to hate when when we ban it in discussions? Evaporates into thin air? Also, is there ANY proof at all that banning hate speech is effective in stopping hateful actions in the short and long term? Answering these questions should be the BASIS for any decisions we make right?

Deciding to commit mass murder rarely happens in a vacuum. It typically happens when you surround yourself all day by people who tell you that mass murder is a good idea. Radicalization is a social phenomenon.

I'm critical of censorship, but not because I think it's ineffective.

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